Page 113 of Queen of Volts

“TellEnne?” Tock shouted. She threw her arms up. “You don’t have anything to say tome?”

Lola swallowed. “I—I don’t.”

Tock put her head in her hands. “I don’t get it! We were... Muck, out of everyone, if you’d asked me to put my volts somewhere, I would’ve put them on us.” She looked up, her dark eyes wide with hurt and confusion. “And I thought I’d at least get some sort of explanation. But I don’t know what I was thinking. You don’t even remember!”

Lola winced. She’d said nearly the same words to her brother. And that made her as bad as him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Was it worth it? Did it change anything?” Tock grabbed a fistful of Lola’s blazer. Lola let out a squeak.

Behind the door, a floorboard groaned.

Lola’s eyes widened and met Tock’s. Tock instantly let go of her jacket, as though grabbing it had only been for show. “I thought so,” Tock murmured, and Lola heaved out a shaky breath. “I told them it should be me who came. I know you better than anyone.”

Then she turned her hand and revealed something she’d been holding. Lola’s card, the Hermit—its face pointed toward Lola. She must’ve taken it from Lola’s jacket pocket when she’d grabbed her. She turned it over curiously, staring at the target card in red scrawl:THE CHARIOT. Her expression darkened.

“Wait,” Lola sputtered, “you can’t—”

Lola tried to rip it from Tock’s grasp, but Tock held it away from her. She squeezed it in her fist, then suddenly—BOOM. It exploded in her hand in a small blast of light and smoke. Its remnants fluttered to the carpet.

“You d-destroyed it!” Lola stammered. Though Lola had never offered it to Arabella, it meant that Arabella would never be able to collect her target’s card. It meant she’d never survive the game.

“I did, and now the Bargainer is trapped, and her target’s card is gone.” Tock took a step closer to her, and Lola backed against the wall a second time. She reached into her pocket, and Lola stiffened, expecting some kind of weapon. Instead, she pulled out a second Shadow Card, and she thrust it into Lola’s trembling hand. Lola turned it over to realize it was Tock’s own target, the Chariot.

“You and me, we’re surviving this game,” Tock told her seriously. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Then she walked away and left Lola where she stood.

When Lola returned inside, shaken, she found Arabella in the living room. She sat at the edge of the couch, staring at the wall, completely idle. It unnerved Lola whenever she did that.

“Sh-she destroyed my card,” Lola confessed, her heart hammering.

Arabella’s brow furrowed. “But the cards can’t be destroyed, not when they’re part of the shade.”

So Tock had tricked her. Lola should’ve expected such a tactic from an Iron. But even so, Lola struggled to summon any anger at her. After all, she’d given Lola her own card.

“Didyoutrick me?” Lola asked. “Did you steal my memories? Or did I give them up willingly?”

“I never trick anyone,” Arabella told her seriously. “If anyone feels they’ve been stolen from, it’s only because they tricked themselves.”

But if Lola had known, wouldn’t Arabella have simply told her that? That she understood the price she’d been paying? Lola would prefer to know that her previous self had weighed the options and chosen wisely, that Tock hadn’t been as precious to her as Tock seemed to believe. But maybe she had. Maybe there was someone out there who shedidmatter to.

And Lola had betrayed her.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried?” Lola asked. “About the game?”

“I already told you—I’ve been making my moves. Bryce will end the game when he realizes he has nothing left to win, when he realizes whatever scenario he’s planned for himself afterward won’t come to fruition.”

Lola scrunched her eyebrows. “You don’t know Bryce like I do. He’s stubborn. He’s obsessive. If you back him into a corner, he’ll only fight harder.”

“Then I’ll find a way to win it on my own.”

“B-but...” Lola hugged her arms to herself. “You can’t win without my card, and my target’s card, and so on. But if I give them to you, then I’ll die, once the game is over.” And Tock would die, too.

But maybe Arabella didn’t care. After all, Lola had never had a friend who hadn’t betrayed her eventually.

“Do you trust me, Lola?” Arabella asked her darkly.